Day 91 - Lost Love Anxiety Trip

 Lost Love Anxiety Trip

 Matthew Ryan Fischer 

 

“…maybe we could grab dinner sometime?”

Jake blinked as his mind raced to comprehend the sensory information it was receiving. It was dark out, night, the temperature was freezing all of the sudden. And most unmistakable, he was alone, in the empty parking lot outside the office park he worked at. Michelle was nowhere to be seen. His adrenaline still running from the anxiety in asking her out was quickly being overwhelmed with a sense of fear and dread.

Questions raced through his mind – Where is she? What happened? Why is it night?

Had he been drugged? He didn’t feel drugged. If he had been what would be the point? To leave him outside his job while everyone took off? It wasn’t a very good prank. And if he had some seizure or medical incident then he’d be in an ambulance or hospital. No way would the entirety of his co-workers leave him during an emergency.

Jake turned to look around the parking lot but couldn’t find his car. The lot was empty. Stolen? Towed? He didn’t know. He knew he was cold. He needed to get moving. There was a gas station on the corner. He could warm up and regroup and call the police from there. And maybe he would go to the ER after that. Maybe he did have some sort of mental fugue state and ended up returning to his job in the middle of the night. He hoped he hadn’t embarrassed himself too badly in front of Michelle.

He set off on foot.

 

 

 

Michelle screamed in terror. Jake had disappeared right in front of her eyes. They had been in the middle of casual conversation, talking about the weekend and she had gotten the feeling that he was about to ask her out. Michelle liked Jake, but she wasn’t sure she liked in enough to do that. If they didn’t have to see each other every day, she might have considered it, but she liked her job and didn’t want to make things awkward. She had tried to be causal and play coy and ignore his blatant behavior, hoping he would get the hint. When he started talking about the weekend, she wished something would intervene and shut him up – another worker, a loud noise, anything. And then he disappeared. And she felt insane.

 

 

 

John kept the doors locked at night. It was for his own safety, but he had certainly let friends in before. His boss didn’t like it, but the night shift was tedious and sometimes you needed a break, so Todd looked the other way and didn’t give John too hard a time. Sometimes John would let the drunks use the bathroom. Especially if it was a group of cute women stumbling back from one of the bars. But not tonight. Nothing much ever happened on a Tuesday. Usually. Tonight, the madman came running by, talking about walking in his sleep and day turning into night and things like that. John considered calling the police, but after a few minutes the man ran off. John was happy not to have to deal with the drama. As long as they left, he left them alone. This madman was on his own.

 

 

Jake sat outside his apartment building. His keys didn’t work. No one would answer the buzzer in the middle of the night. He could survive until morning. He would sort it out then. He called a Lyft to take him to the hospital. He might as well check for a concussion.

 

 

 

Michelle was afraid to go back to work. Jake and disappeared two weeks prior and no one had any explanation that made any sense. Michelle was the only one in the parking lot at the time and they were standing in a dead spot where the security cameras didn’t catch what happened.

She had told her bosses. She had told the police. People at worked looked at her strange. Perhaps they thought she was insane. Or perhaps that she was a killer. No one had an answer for where Jake was, but Michelle could feel their eyes watching and judging here.

Michelle considered quitting. She couldn’t work in a place where everyone suspected her. She couldn’t stand feeling insane. She couldn’t handle believing she saw what she knew she saw. It defied reason and broke the rules of reality. It was too much. She had to get away.

 

 

 

Jake noticed the calendar as he sat in the waiting room. It was wrong. By half a year. But it had been freezing cold in the parking lot. It had felt like winter in the blink of an eye. But that was impossible. It was spring. It had to be. But he felt that creeping feeling in the back of his mind, that it was true. Something horrible had happened. Something he couldn’t comprehend. Time was broken and he, its victim.